But he knows you know he knows you know.....

I'd like to talk nullsec politics again because I think there's a sophistication and a depth that people either deliberately gloss over or simply fail to see.

The invasion of Fountain has ground to stalemate. Which could, arguably, be seen as a failure for the invader.

Was it just a mistake?

There's a lot going on under the surface.

Ever noticed how everyone promises Germany they won't attack them?

On June 6th following heavy pressure on Test Alliance from the rest of nullsec The Mittani announced the CFC would be invading Fountain because it wanted the moon mineral wealth of the region. Test had not long before split from the HBC and appeared diplomatically isolated. NC. was invading Test space at 1-SMEB and allied strategically critical space in Querious, cutting Fortress Delve off from high sec. For the 30000 man Clusterfuck Coalition Fountain must have seemed like easy pickings, with Test seeming more concerned about holding Delve against NC. than worrying about its less important region.

Test resisted the CFC for about 10 days with help only from Tribe alliance, a small wormhole corp and a handful of refugees from the disintegrating Raiden. alliance then NC. moved to our support having very clearly done a deal with Test to get Querious unopposed. The rest of N3 moved to support us and PL took a mild interest between Alliance Tournament sessions.

Was the Mittani suckered into an invasion that would turn into an ambush?

Hell no.

(Or at least, lacking inside information I'd be flabbergasted if he hadn't considered it possible).

He knew that a reversal of diplomatic alignment was possible. He may even have suspected that the 1-SMEB thing was a charade staged to draw the CFC out into a conflict it would be hard for them to win.

But knowing that it was still a very good move for the CFC to push Fountain. When a mouse gets hungry enough the cheese on the trap is worth the risk

The curse of the north is that people get fat lazy and unmotivated. A leader's job in Eve is to engineer exciting content. Branch/Fade Pure Blind Deklein is one of the most difficult areas of nullsec to manage because once it's secure no one pushes it. The old Northern Coalition bloated there and died, space rich and self serving.

See, that's what Mittens has to fear most - not that Goons may lose all their allies and all their space but the worse thing of all - that Eve becomes boring for them. As long as the game remains exciting Goons and Test are impossible to completely defeat - look how well Nulli bounced back from losing their space last year.

Now if 1-SMEB was a charade (and I don't know that it was but I suspect) then The Mittani knew that it might be a charade; Boodabooda Vince and Shadoo knew that he knew, he knew that they knew that he knew and so on. It's a very deep game that has seen Shadoo and Mittens circling around each other for several years now, conquerors in a game of space conquest lining up the sides to decide the fate of the galaxy.

It's a deep game that is now heading towards denouement and very interesting to see the subtleties of how it plays out.